Lake Sakakawea State Park

Where Is This Campground Located?

Lake Sakakawea State Park is located on the southeastern side of Lake Sakakawea near Pick City, North Dakota. This campground has 249 sites and offers both electric/water hookups for $25 per night and non-hookup sites for $17 per night. Every site has a picnic table and a fire ring. We originally found out about this campground from a post shared in the NüRVers Facebook Group that we are a part of. Thanks Rod!

What Services Are Available Here?

Some sites have electric/water hookups and others have no hookups. All sites, as we understand it, are first-come first-served. We visited on what ended up to be a very stormy Labor Day weekend, and all of the electric/water sites filled up quickly. But we ended up in a non-hookup site and that was perfectly okay with us.

The staff is very friendly at the visitor’s center. They checked us in quickly, told us all about the various things to do, and suggested some excellent spots based on our rig and solar power set up. The good news for you solar-centric gypsies out there is that the non-hookup sites are almost all pure sunlight. There are two non-hookup loops; we ended up in Fishing Point in the northern section of the park. This loop has almost all sunny spots available and grassy pads—not entirely level, but easily workable with a few blocks.

The non-hookup loops and dump station area have potable water and threaded faucets. The water itself tasted a little funky during our stay, but it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a chlorination flavor as much as a slightly swampy after taste that sometimes comes from unprocessed water that is pumped too close to a natural lake or stream—of course, the heavy storms may have had something to do with that. It probably won’t make you sick, but it’s good to know if you live off your fresh water tank like we do. We double-filter, and it still came through a little bit.

The on-premises dump station is very large and surprisingly clean with four lanes for your dumping pleasure. At first I thought that was excessive, but I was wrong. With every site in the hookup section filled for a holiday weekend, by checkout time (1pm) every one of the lanes is packed with people wanting to dump their tanks. Our line was so long that the wait was at least 4 RVs deep before it trickled into a single-file line that then backed up onto the street. Be warned if you stay here on a holiday weekend and need to dump—leave early or be prepared to wait.

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There is a marina on premises, which is great if you have a boat or are just in the mood for a couple of quick snacks or drinks. They sell sodas, chips, candy, ice cream, and will heat up frozen pizzas on request. We ended up wandering down there the second day. The items were a little overpriced, but nothing compared to some of the other park stores we’ve visited elsewhere.

During our stay the grounds were clean and well maintained. The grass was cut and the roads were free of major pot holes. The rangers came by every few hours to make sure everything was okay. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem intent on enforcing the rules, as a quite a few of them drove by our neighbors who had all three of their dogs (and all four of their toddlers) off-leash and mostly unsupervised for the entire weekend.

We had excellent cell and data reception with 4 solid bars of Verizon LTE and 5 bars of Verizon 3G. We did not try our AT&T connection here. There was no need for a range extender. We were able to stream videos and run updates the entire time we were there and had no interruption in service. This was particularly great given that it rained for half of our stay.

What Were We Up To?

We worked and played video games and basically spent a whole lot of time inside. The weather was pretty stormy a good bit of the time. Since there was nothing but puddles and our RV out there on the grassy peninsula, between the lightning and the wind, it felt a very exposed on a few occasions. On the sunny side of things, we used some of the free indoor time to get our entire house reorganized and discovered we actually have a whole lot more space than we thought we did. Score!

We often avoid state parks because they sometimes charge extra fees in addition to their camping fees. This place is no exception. Non-hookup sites are listed at $17, but you are also charged an additional $5 day-use pass per vehicle. But for a lakeside campground with amenities, the total nightly cost is still very reasonable. We’d easily stay there again the next time we are in the area, but probably not on a holiday weekend.